Sunday, January 17, 2016

Bookplates As Art

Bookplates as
Art Part One of Three

by Mark
Witteveen

I collect
bookplates as art. European pieces primarily, from the early 20th century prior
to the rise of the National Socialists. Many of these bookplates are cultural
artifacts. Charged with emotion, full of meaning, they come to us with complex
legacies through the murderous upheavals and triumphs of the last century. By
turns, on their own or through the sharpening lens of hindsight, they can
entertain, enthrall, and disturb all the while vibrating with a strong pulse,
like good theater. Or they can explode like a firecracker.

Representational
imagery in bookplates really flourishes after 1900. I’m strolling along a dark
corridor with a flashlight scanning the walls, and I discover I’m not in a
corridor at all but a vast museum of connecting rooms where thousands of small
pictures hang upon the walls.

Also from this
time, with great appeal, narrative appears. We see bookplates with commentary on
the human condition, personal stories and insights, hobbies, sports, the Arts,
humor, playfulness, frivolity, reactions to world events, and more. Made by
incredibly talented artists. And I remind myself that most bookplates were
commissions. So not only did artist and occasion have to meet, he or she had to
wrangle with a client. No doubt that negotiation varied, but what was a typical
arrangement? Imagining one scenario, I picture Walter Helfenbein with one of his
risqué bookplates wrought fresh for a client, who upon seeing it, retreats a
quick step and says, “Ahhh yeah, no thanks pal.”

Fritz Gilsi (Swiss)
for Alfred Kaufmann, (ca 1923) shows progress/enlightenment, in the form of a
naked woman wielding a torch, and arriving in an open book, scattering the
masses.

The design is
richly associative; provocative without being confrontational, and completely
lacking in sentiment. Note the pilgrim hat and the woman fleeing, her hands over
her face. I recall Dostoevsky’s comment in one of his notebooks: “The European
enlightenment is more important than people.” Gilsi’s bookplate seems as
relevant to America today as it did in Europe, circa 1923.

Mileva Roller
(Austrian) for Helen Anderle (1912). At a glance, many people could pinpoint the
origins of this image: Wiener Werkstatte, early 1900s. Sure, it’s of the era.

What of the artist,
Mileva Roller? In doing a little research, one finds more references to her
beauty than to her artistic efforts. There doesn’t seem to be much of her stuff
around. Was she not very productive? Merely derivative? Not encouraged? So many
questions. To what extent did she achieve recognition, outside of her obvious
association with famous male artists of the era -- her husband Alfred Roller,
Solomon Moser, Gustav Klimt. What’s her story?

Fritz Schwimbeck
for Dr. Arthur Ludwig (1912).

Look at those
etched lines. That’s a steady hand. A setting sun, and the light still reaches
out to touch every boulder, to invade every nook, as if to lay claim. Then the
approaching night and tailgating gloom; you can almost feel its fur against your
face.

Heinrich
Seufferheld (German) for Dr. Med. A W. Pietzcker (1915).

Skeletal Death is a
frequent actor in medical bookplates. Vengeful, predatory. Lurking close. In
this Seufferheld bookplate, however, its treatment is unique. Maybe I’ve made up
a storyline, but I’m going with it. Death is the one in trouble here. The
struggle is past and the patient has proved the stronger. She has won this
battle. In her tender care for the actor Death, we see its grim touch in her
embrace, the taste is in her mouth, its stench fills her nostrils. This
closeness, this ‘brush with death’, has given her foresight, so she takes pity.
No one claims victory over Death. Time will take its toll; she won’t always be
strong; someday, as certainly as night follows dusk follows day, their positions
will be reversed. She is pleading mercy for her own gentle
end.

Arthur Paunzen
(Austrian) for Th. Alexander (1917). The still-raging horrors of WWI are in this
Paunzen bookplate. Small details are telling: a simple home, beside it a lone
figure tries to work peacefully at a table; and the curve of the ground,
suggesting not that Death is tramping across an isolated farmer’s field, but
stalking the globe.

A further note on
the artist: as noted on docsanddocs.com, in
1938, “Paunzen fled Nazi Austria for England with 504 drawings and graphics and
one violin.” He died two years later on the Isle of Man, interned in a prison
camp there by the British. I mention these facts and the website for those
wanting to learn more about the artist, and to encourage collectors with Paunzen
art to consider contacting the research team on the website, led by Gregory
Hahn, Pd.D., who are compiling a Catalogue raisonné of the artist’s work.

Richard Lux
(Austrian) for Martha Winter (1934).

A shimmery emotive quality to this scene by
Richard Lux. Sometimes I look at bookplate scene and wonder, “How does this
relate to its owner?” (Martha Winter, in this example below.) Did she visit the
artist’s studio and choose from his existing works, ‘Yeah, make me that one
please.’ Or was Lux given free reign and he found inspiration in her personal
history.